'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' alum Kim Richards shares some life updates with ET, including about her autobiography.
"Everybody loves a comeback story, especially starring me!"
So quipped Kim Richards at the start of each episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 4. The show is now in its 12th season, which apparently could've featured another Kim comeback!
"So, [Real Housewives executive producer Andy Cohen] did call and he said, 'You know, we want you back...' and it was very-- I love Andy -- and so I said, 'I thought you were calling me to offer me my own show!' Seriously!" Kim shared with ET at a viewing party for RHOBH hosted by her sister, Kathy Hilton, and Menolabs at Kathy's Los Angeles-area home on Wednesday night. Kim said the offer is seemingly still on the table if she'd like to film for season 13.
"I have to think about it," she explains. "There's certain things that, you know, I would want -- or I wouldn't want -- and so, I never say never, 'cause the last time I said I would never talk to a human again and it was Brandi Glanville and we became best friends! So, I don't say never, I just say it's not for me. It wasn't for me then, and I don't know what the future brings."
Kim says she's simply not excited by doing TV at the moment, but if she did return it would be on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills; she's not interested in filming an Ultimate Girls Trip spinoff. Kim last appeared as a main cast member on RHOBH in season 5, but has made pretty regular guest appearances in the years since; she, however, has not popped up on camera since Kathy started filming with the group as a "friend of" last season. Kim and Kathy's sister, Kyle Richards, has of course been a diamond-holder across all 12 seasons of the show.
"I haven't watched, to be truthful," Kim admits of the last two years. "First of all, it was hard for me in the beginning because, I know I saw on, like, Instagram, I saw my sisters [filming together], and it wasn't that I wanted to work, it was that I miss them and I felt like that was time I could have been spending with them, and after that I thought, you know, I'm just gonna pull back and let them do their thing and enjoy, and that's what I've done -- and I hear things... and I hear things and I hear things, 'cause I have ears!"
Kyle and Kathy are currently going through some sisterly growing pains, with yet-to-be revealed drama set to unfold in the back half of season 12. Both Kyle and Kathy have told ET that they're in a decent place now, but there still seems to be some friction airing out in real time.
"I stayed out of it until a couple days ago," Kim reveals. "When I heard the last thing that I heard, I just wrote to them both in a group text -- our sister chat -- and I just said, 'I love you both and I don't really know what's going on there, but I do know that we have two of our daughters are getting married this next coming year and I'd like to see if we could find a way to resolve it and I'm here to help and I love you both,' and so that's what I [did], but I didn't wanna-- I didn't wanna overstep my boundary. It's, like, respect them but I couldn't help it anymore."
Kim says she tries to stay out of the drama and out of the "darkness," which is part of the reason, she says, she pressed pause on writing her memoir. Announced back in 2019, the book was set to hit store shelves 2021, but never materialized.
"So, I was working with a private writer and she was gonna send me weekly updates, and she didn’t," Kim explains. "I kept calling her and saying, 'You’re supposed to give me [an update] every week...' [She replied], 'I’m busy and you’ll get them when you get them...' and next thing I [know], there were 375 pages [written by her that I had not helped write]."
"Then, I called my manager and said, 'I don’t really know what’s going on...' -- I don’t really want to talk bad about anybody -- but I never saw the book and I don’t know what was in it," she continues. "So I said, 'I don’t even know if she added [anything], or she didn’t, and I would like to see...' but it’s too much for me, 'cause COVID hit and I thought, I don’t want it [released] during COVID. I was in survival [mode]. I mean, I was living alone for the first time, I was scared every day -- groceries are coming and I’m wearing gloves and mask and it was a scary time for me -- and the last thing I thought I needed was to look back at my mother passing away, and [my late ex-husband] Monty leaving, my dad... it was just very, those were the most important things that I didn’t really want to look back at. I was trying to live in the now, and it was really something I just I physically couldn’t do at that point."
Kim says she's not sure when or if she'll return to writing the autobiography.
"I haven't even seen [that manuscript]," she reiterates, "and if we were to do it -- and by the way, I've changed a lot since then, so I don't even know that [any of] that would apply any longer. I'm so different today -- and hopefully in a good way -- but I don't know that I would want to say or write-- and I didn't say half the things I heard they were saying so, la da da, but I love my family. I really do, and I love myself -- which I, by the way, I didn't even know I loved me! I didn't know who I was until I spent two years by myself."
"I'm trying to pick the time right," Kim says. "I want people to see really me being at my best [self], my calm self -- and I really am -- and so the last few times I've been like, oh... oh my god, I don't want that. I don't wanna come out all over the board or not know what to say."
"I just want it to be organic," she continues. "I don't wanna push anything, or fake anything. I don't wanna try. I just wanna be."
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
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